


Blood Bound

by Whedonista93



Series: A Bit Macabre [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Addams Family (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Darcy Lewis is Wednesday Addams, F/M, Wednesday Addams is Darcy Lewis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 14:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 6,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19443565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whedonista93/pseuds/Whedonista93
Summary: Wednesday realizes quickly that college will be easier if she blends in better. So Wednesday Addams goes home Thanksgiving break, and Darcy Lewis returns to school in her place.





	1. College First

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual, thank you to aggiepuff  
> Best beta EVER. Seriously don't know how I ever wrote anything before we met.

Mother says, “College first.”

So Wednesday goes to college. She knows, before she goes, that her family is different. Camp Chippewa had reinforced that. Wednesday discovers, _quickly_ , that college is going to be easier if she blends in better. She’s not ashamed of who she is, but she’s smart enough to know how much she’ll learn by not standing out. So Wednesday Addams goes home Thanksgiving break, and Darcy Lewis returns to school in her place. 

Her father cries.

Her mother tsks and shakes her head, but doesn’t admonish, just asks, “Why Darcy, dear?”

She shrugs. “It means ‘dark one.’ It seemed fitting.”

At least her mother smiles at that.

* * *

Where Wednesday Addams was disturbing, Darcy Lewis is just a bit macabre. Where Wednesday was odd, Darcy is eccentric. Darcy is still weird, but she’s the kind of weird that fits in at college. The discovery of tasers alone is almost enough for the normal act to be worth it.

She takes classes in literature and math and computers and politics, eventually settling on political science, if only because the rest of it comes too easily to be a challenge. Politics are constantly twisting and changing and _wrong_ in a way that appeals to Wednesday and Darcy never has to explain. She avoids science, knowing that Grandmama will teach her anything she needs to know, until the last moment when she realizes she won’t graduate without at least one course, and somehow - she later learns it was by virtue of being the only one who applied - lands an internship with an astrophysicist. 

Upon walking into Jane’s office on the first day of summer, as she’d been instructed by e-mail, the women can’t help grin at one another. Neither expected to find a cousin at Culver, of all places.

* * *

When the dust settles over Puente Antiguo and Thor comes to find them, he stops, utterly frozen, and blinks several times before he throws his head back and laughs. “It is fortunate, I suppose, I was found by the likes of you rather than common beings.”

Darcy finds she’s not actually surprised the Asgardian can see the different beneath their skins.

* * *

Somehow, they end up with an entire residential floor of Stark Towers to themselves and a designated lab space. Darcy, with a space that’s truly her own for the first time in about six years, sets it up to feel like the home she hasn’t been back to in about six years. She sweet talks Tony into setting up a greenhouse along the exterior wall of her apartment and spends several days digging up caches of her kind of people all over the city to stock it. She spends weeks trolling through flea markets and antique shops for furniture - old, heavy, dark woods, a deep red velvet sofa and gray armchairs in a matching style. She forgoes electric lights, aside from a couple floor lamps in corners, and stocks up on oil lamps and candles. She sends photographs to her mother with a note that it would be almost perfect if she could figure out how to get a draft to run through a state-of-the-art building. Her mother sends back a heavy box a week later containing a grimoire and, of all things, Thing. 

The hand scurries around her apartment, exploring, for hours, before settling on a perch atop one of the posts on her canopy bed, surrounded by vintage drapes she hasn’t bothered washing - she likes the spiders, and the fact that they smell a bit like her father’s favorite cigars.


	2. Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we see the Avengers & Co. start seeing bits of Wednesday through Darcy.

Darcy snorts and looks up at Tony. “I’m sorry, you want to go to a what?”

“Renaissance Festival,” the billionaire answers with a grin.

“Why?”

“Wanna take Prince of the Draperies.”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “Fine, but we’re making it a PR event.”

Tony gorans, but acquiesces. “Okay, deal, but you have to convince someone to sword fight with me.”

Jane doesn’t even look up from her notebook as she throws Darcy under the bus. “Darcy will do it.”

“Jane!” Darcy protests.

Tony scoffs. “I wouldn’t want to embarrass her.”

Darcy’s eyes narrow. “Screw you, Stark. I’m doing it.”

*

Darcy has one booted foot planted on the ground and the other firmly on Tony’s chest, the tip or her rapier tweaking the side of his nose.

On the ground, Tony is red and sputtering. “What the hell, Lewis?!”

Darcy shrugs. “Father insisted on mastering at least one practical skill.”

“And sword fighting was the practical skill you chose?”

Darcy shrugs and steps back. “Fencing, technically.”

Tony scrambles to his feet, still gaping at her.

Thor strides into the sparring circle. “Can you handle a broadsword, m’lady?”

Darcy grins. “I’m better with an axe.”


	3. Nat

They’re out at a club in Manhattan when Darcy sees a man lean over the bar and pour something out of a vial into the drink Nat just ordered while the redhead is sufficiently distracted by an overly handsy drunk. Darcy cuts through the crowd like a shadow and snatches the drink up before the bartender can slide it down to Nat. She salutes her with the glass, tosses a twenty on the counter and grins at the man who spiked it before slamming it back. 

The cyanide burns pleasantly and Darcy smirks at the would-be-poinsonor before she licks her lips, chasing the last drop of the drink. She motions the bartender for two more. Once they’re on the counter, she reaches into the breast pocket of the man’s jacket and pours the remaining liquid in the vial into the two glasses before shoving one into his hand. “Cheers.”

He gulps, hard, eyes flitting between her and the drink.

She raises an eyebrow, lets the threat, the something  _ else _ in her shine through her eyes. 

He flinches back, and drinks. Darcy stands and moves toward the restrooms, passing the second drink to the not-as-drunk-as-he-appeared man who had been hitting on Nat with a wink. Once safely ensconced in a stall, screams - she’s assuming both men have collapsed into convulsions by now - coming from the club as she swallows the little vial whole, eliminating the evidence long before anyone even knows to look for it.

Nat narrows her eyes when Darcy cries to the cops that she’d just had a drink with one of them and he had seemed so nice, but doesn’t say anything.


	4. Clint

Clint wants to practice firing the new arrows Tony made for him past a moving target. Nat wants to practice throwing her new knives  _ at _ a moving target. Tony offers to build them a robot, but they’re both too impatient, and no one else steps up, Darcy volunteers. Everyone, including Clint and Nat, try to talk her out of it, but now that she’s considering the idea, it sounds like fun, and she refuses to be swayed.

Clint’s arrows fly by so closely she can feel the fletchings at the end of the bolts.

Tony makes her wear one of his prototype suits - cutting edge nanotechnology, very flexible - when Nat starts throwing knives. Darcy would be lying if she said she wasn’t disappointed in the lack of bleeding.

At the end of the impromptu training session, Darcy feels her blood humming just under her skin, begging for some kind of something.

“You are nuts, Lewis!” Clint sputters.

“What the hell do you call that?” Nat snaps. “You weren’t even trying to evade my blades!”

Darcy grins. “If you weren’t so sickeningly committed to each other, I’d call it foreplay.”

Tony chokes on air as she saunters out of the room.


	5. Steve

Steve is a puzzle. Darcy likes puzzles. When the team isn’t actively training or on a mission, he mostly keeps to himself. It takes Darcy an embarrassingly long time figure out why. She glides into the kitchen on the community floor, at a completely indecent hour, and catches Steve chopping the ingredients for a salad, except, _oh_. Those greens are from a devil’s snare. And those mushrooms are _definitely_ death caps. She intentionally lets her tread fall heavier as she steps fully into the kitchen and Steve startles, the knife slipping and slicing his palm almost to the bones in the back of his hand. Darcy watches silently as the muscle, flesh, and skin knit themselves back together.

Steve blushes. “You startled me.”

“So I see,” Darcy nods to the nearly gone gash across his hand.

“Uh, the serum,” Steve blurts. “Fast healer.”

Darcy shakes her head. “No… no, that’s not it, is it?”

Steve stands up straight. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Yes.”

Steve sputters.

“You could do that before the serum,” Darcy nods to knife, “couldn’t you?”

Steve stares at her, a few unreadable expressions tripping across his face.

Darcy rolls her eyes and leans around him, grabs a few leaves of the devil’s snare and pops them in her mouth.

Steve shouts out a protest, reaching out belatedly as she swallows.

Darcy grins. “Scared I’m gonna keel over from a bit of salad?”

The denial still warring for precedence over Steve’s features fades.

“What’s your real name?” Darcy demands.

Steve blinks.

Darcy rolls her eyes and waves a hand in front of his face. “Your name. What is your real name?”

Steve seems to deflate. “Stephanos.”

Darcy tilts her head. “And who are you?”

Steve looks at her quizzically.

“Your family,” she prompts.

He gives her another Look before sighing. “My ma’s maiden name is Frump.”

Darcy _almost_ claps in delight. As is, she just tilts her head. “Was your mother Seraphina or Ophelia?”

Steve’s jaw drops. “Uh… Seraphina.”

Darcy nods. “Cousins, then.”

Steve gapes. “What?”

She rolls her eyes. “We’re cousins. My mother and your mother are sisters.”

“Were,” Steve corrects.

Darcy snorts. “ _Are_. Have you even thought to check in with the family since you came out of the ice? Your ma never died. She just went home. We don’t die easily.”

Steve nods slowly, then shakes his head, then nods again. “Uh, no. I haven’t. I didn’t really think… I haven’t. So, wait… you’re Morticia’s daughter? She only had…” Steve looks at her again. “Wednesday?”

Darcy inclines her head in a nod.

“But… you were… before I went into the ice. You were a kid, but… if… shouldn’t you be old?” Steve finishes stammering lamely.

Darcy scoffs. “You really don’t know much about the family, do you?”

Steve shrugs helplessly. “Ma wanted me to be normal.”

Darcy purses her lips, huffs out a breath. “Okay, make you a deal, oh cousin mine, share that salad and I’ll educate you.”

Steve shoves the whole salad bowl at her.

She picks it up. “Let’s take this back to my apartment. I should have some fresh hemlock we can add.”


	6. Winter

Darcy knows something is wrong when she throws her paring knife at Steve and it actually knicks his arm before he stops pacing. “Okay, _spill_.”

Steve flops back onto her couch, and throws his arm over his eyes, effectively blocking the meager light that Darcy’s oil lamps offer. Thing immediately makes himself at home on Steve’s chest. Steve pats Thing in fond acknowledgement with his free hand.

Darcy rounds the counter and taps her foot impatiently. “I’m waiting.”

Steve heaves a sigh. “The Winter Soldier.”

Darcy licks her lips and hopes Steve doesn’t move his arm before her blush fades. Thankfully, her voice remains steady. “Yeah.”

“He’s Bucky.”

Darcy blinks. Once, twice. She manages to round the nearest armchair before she collapses. “What?”

Steve moves his arm and sits up, absently shifting Thing to his shoulder as he does. “Yeah.”

“Your Bucky?”

Steve nods.

“Explain.”

“I saw him. And those SHIELD… or Hydra… I don’t even know anymore. But those files… it’s all in there. The fall from the train didn’t kill him. Hydra found him. Lost his arm, so they gave him the prosthetic. They wiped his brain. Re-trained him.”

Darcy leans forward, listening aptly.

“Tortured him. Wiped his mind again. Put him in cryo in between. Iced and remade. Over and over, and over again. I gotta… I’ve gotta find him, Darce. He’s not like us. That kind of torture…”

Darcy nods. “I know. So let’s find him.”

“How?”

Darcy goes for her grimoire.


	7. Bruce

“Bruce, the self-sacrificing moron,” Tony explains petulantly, “took my jet and vanished after the whole Ultron mess.”

“We are all aware of this, Stark,” Clint grinds out through his teeth.

Tony rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, are you aware, Hawkass, that the beacon on the jet came back online about an hour ago?”

Nat sits up in her chair, ramrod straight. “Where? Let’s go get him!”

Tony flinches. “That’s the thing... it’s kinda, well, here.” He hits a button and a holographic map pops up in the middle of the conference table, a green dot flashing.

Jane scans it, then practically jumps over the table to get to Darcy. “Oh gosh, can we go?! We can go, right?”

Tony gapes. “Okay, I thought _I_ was crazy. What are you gonna do, open one of your bridges or portals into the middle of the fucking Bermuda Triangle?”

Jane pauses in her excited bouncing. “Okay, theoretically, I _could_ , but the calculations would take months.”

Tony nods. “And we’re back to you being crazy, because that being said, it sounds like you’re suggesting you and Intern actually going to the Bermuda Triangle to rescue Bruce, who may or may not actually be there, and may or may not still be a giant green rage monster.”

Jane nods. “Yeah.”

Darcy tries and fails to conceal her snickers behind her hand, and turns to laugh into Steve’s shoulder instead.

“Could you do it?” Steve asks in an undertone out the corner of his mouth.

Darcy manages to nod.

She feels Steve shrug. “I’ll go with them.”

Tony’s jaw drops again. “Pretty sure the Bermuda Triangle had been discovered by the time you were in school, Grandpa Spangles. You crazies get that there is no coming back out of the Bermuda Triangle, right?”

Darcy collects herself and shrugs. “Maybe not for you.”

“Oh, but you’re just special?” Tony sneers.

Darcy shrugs. “Yes.”

Tony eyes her shrewdly. “You’re not kidding. You really think you can rescue him and come back.

Darcy nods. “You trust me, right?”

Tony nods slowly.

“Leave it to us.”

Jane cheers. “Think I can get my telescope and camera in and out without ruining or losing them?”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “Maybe, Janey. I don’t know.”

Jane pouts. “I wanna chart the stars from the center of the region.”

Darcy shakes her head. “We’ll borrow Uncle Fester’s camera, okay?”

Darcy, Steve, and Jane exit the conference room without any further discussion, already bickering over travel plans, with the rest of the team gaping after them in confusion.

They vanish the following day, and reappear three weeks later with a very confused Bruce in tow. None of them will tell an increasingly frustrated Tony what happened.


	8. Bucky

It’s Thing that actually finds Bucky. Well, an argument could be made that it’s Bucky who finds them and Thing who notices him following them and catches Darcy’s attention. She clenches Steve’s elbow a little harder and sidles further into his side, smiling up at hima and speaking quietly, without really moving her lips. “Don’t look, but we have a shadow.”

Steve’s eyes tighten, but her grins back down at her and casually steers them toward the park. Darcy nudges Thing out from under her coat at the first dark patch they come to, and she and Steve vanish into the next. She sees Bucky freeze under the next circle of lamp light. He turns to flee, but it’s too late - Thing’s already tied his boot laces together, and Darcy glides out of the bushes and tases him before he can even get flipped over on his back.

Steve grimaces. “We could have just tried talking to him.”

Darcy levels him with an unimpressed look.

He grimaces harder. “Fine. Should probably get him back to the Tower before he wakes up… your apartment?”

She nods, and they heave the assassin - former assassin? - up between them.

They have the unfortunate luck of running into Tony in the elevator.

The billionaire’s eyes go wide. “Lewis… did you just bring an internationally wanted Hydra assassin into my tower?”

Steve glares at the other man over Bucky and Darcy’s heads. “We just brought a tortured for decades prisoner of war into your tower.”

Tony thinks over that for a moment before he shrugs. “I can spin that. If it leaks to the press… or law, not that I’m gonna tell ‘em.”

Tony saunters off at his floor, and doesn’t question the fact that they’re clearly not taking Buck to medical, or planning on telling anyone about him being there.

Once they reach her floor, Darcy nudges Thing down again. “Go tell Jane not to come down here for a while.”

The hand skitters off down the hall as Darcy nudges and kicks her door open.

They’ve barely managed to drop Bucky onto the couch and retreat to the opposite side of the coffee table when he wakes up, clearly ready to fight. Darcy goes a little weak in the knees at the violence promised in his eyes and actually has to grab Steve’s arm for support.

He eyes her shrewdly.

She scrunches her nose at him in response.

Bucky narrows his eyes at them both. “You attacked me… didn’t think you had it on you, punk.”

Steve shrugs. “Wasn’t my plan.”

Bucky’s eyes shift to Darcy, and she meets them readily. He shakes his head ruefully. “Think you’re real clever, don’t ya, doll?”

Darcy nods. “Yes, actually.”

Bucky’s lips twitch.

Darcy grins back. 

Bucky shakes his head, then drops to the couch, still tense. “Well, you did get me here.”

Darcy releases Steve’s arm and walks around the coffee table, gestures to the couch next to Bucky. “May I?”

Bucky looks up at her. “Get the feeling you’re the kinda dame to do exactly what you like, damn the consequences.”

She plops down and holds her hand out. “Darcy Lewis. You sure we haven’t met before?”

Bucky snorts and shakes her hand. “Think I’d remember a gal like you no matter what they did to me.”

Steve makes a gagging sound. “You guys are seriously flirting right now?”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “Dark, brooding, tortured, violent… it’s like someone wrapped up all my buttons in one pretty package, oh cousin of mine. How could I not?”

“Cousin?” Bucky’s eyebrows go up.

Steve nods and drops into an armchair. “You remember my cousin Wednesday?”

Bucky nods, turns back to Darcy. “You her kid… or grandkid?”

Darcy raises an eyebrow.

Steve shakes his head. “She  _ is _ Wednesday, Buck. Turns out my family is even weirder than we thought.”

* * *

Bucky is in Darcy’s apartment for a month before anyone - barring Tony, who has, surprisingly, kept his mouth shut - realizes he’s there. And that’s only because Sam realizes it’s been that long since Steve sent him on a wild goose chase.

Sam calls across the gym. “Hey, Cap!”

Steve grunt an acknowledgement from his place at the heavy bag.

“You give up on your pal? Been a while since we went looking.”

Steve freezes just a fraction of a moment too long.

Sam notices. “You found him, didn’t you, you asshole?”

Everyone else - minus Tony and Bruce, who are on a science bender, and Thor and Jane, who are in Darcy’s apartment - freezes and goes silent.

Hesitantly, Steve nods.

Sam throws his hands in the air. “Well then where the hell is he?! I was invested in this, man!”

Steve flinches. “Yeah, sorry. He, uh… he wasn’t in a good head space when we found him… didn’t wanna be around people.”

“And now?”

“Right, yeah, uh, he’s in Darcy’s apartment.”

Nat cocks her head. “And how long has he been there?”

Steve ducks his head sheepishly. “‘Bout a month.”

Overlapping, indignant yells fill the room. Steve tries to make himself as small as possible but everyone’s ire is focused on him. 

A sharp whistle from the entrance cuts them off. Darcy is standing there, Bucky at her shoulder. Everyone stares silently.

Bucky takes a shuddering breath, then lifts his head to meet Steve’s eyes. “Wanna spar, punk?”

Steve’s grin damn near splits his face.

Bucky assimilates to the team well after that.


	9. Shadow

“Darcy!”

Darcy nearly sprints out of her greenhouse at Steve’s frantic shout from her living room. She skids to a stop in time to see him dumping Bucky on her couch. A cursory glance shows blood pooled at his chest a hole in his skull. “What-?”

“He doesn’t have a pulse, Darce.” Steve’s tone is strangled.

Darcy’s heart freezes, and she spins on her heel, back to the greenhouse and her grimoire. She finds the spell she needs and starts methodically harvesting ingredients. “Shit.” She digs her phone out. “Hello, Mother. Is Grandmama available? Yes. Ask her if I can substitute azalea blossoms for oleander in a reanimation spell. It will do what? What if I mix it with- right. Thank you.”

Steve, watching her wide-eyed from the doorway, takes a half a step forward. “Darcy, he’s not like us. What will-”

“This is why you brought him to me, isn’t it?” Darcy snaps. “Let me work.”

She grinds the last ingredients in before unsheathing the dagger she keeps at her waist and slitting her wrist over the mixture. She carries the whole concoction to the living room starts putting it over Bucky’s wounds like a paste, muttering in Latin with Steve hovering over her shoulder all the while.

The hours before he stirs draw out torturously, and Darcy relishes in the anguish, but also worries she may have been too late - she’s not ready for his permanent death. But finally, he draws a ragged breath.

She and Steve both slump in relief.

Steve doesn’t take his eyes off his best friend. “This will change him, won’t it?”

Darcy nods. “He’ll be more like us, I think.”

Steve doesn’t respond. 

Finally, Bucky opens his eyes. 

Darcy doesn’t move until he finds her eyes and cracks a bloody smile at her. “Thanks, doll.”

She brushes his hair out of his eyes. “Of course, _mon cœur_."

* * *

Bucky, in the days after she brings him back, with a few new scars, becomes Darcy’s shadow. The team eyes them oddly, but no one questions it. Things fall into a new pattern. At least until Zemo sneaks past their defenses and manages to confine Bucky. The trigger words he uses have no effect - Addams blood in his veins overtaking any other influences, but regardless, “Mission Report: December 16, 1991,” is repeated enough before Darcy slits the man’s throat that the damage is done. Bucky manages to confess to Darcy and Steve in a broken whisper later that night. Darcy takes Tony to the facility in Siberia herself. He rages and breaks… well, breaks the general vicinity, while Darcy stands by.

“He’s sorry. He didn’t… he wasn’t himself. It wasn’t his choice.”

Tony chokes on a bitter laugh. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna be able to look at him without wanting to fucking strangle him.”

Darcy nods in acceptance. “I’ll take him away.”

Tony looks up. “You mean that.”

“Yes.”

“Where will you go?”

“Back to my family. I haven’t been home in about a decade. I miss them. And it will be a good place for him.”

“You mean for him to hide.”

She straightens her shoulders. “My family doesn’t hide from their demons, Stark. We call them out to play.”

Tony shakes his head. “You’re something else, Lewis.” He takes a deep breath. “What do we do about…” he gestures to the cryo chambers. 

Darcy turns toward them. “You’re not going to like the answer to that.”

“You think we should kill them.”

“You don’t?”

He takes a deep breath. “Don’t tell the others.”

Darcy nods in agreement.


	10. Home

Clint eyes the Packard on the curb and the massive driver shrewdly. “Exactly how wealthy is your family, Lewis?”

Darcy just grins as Lurch straps the last of her chests to the roof.

Jane pouts at her.

She rolls her eyes. “I’ll be back to interview my replacements in a week, Janey. Just gotta get Bucky settled in at home.”

Jane chews at her lip and leans close to whisper, “You’re not staying in the manor with your family, are you?”

Darcy snorts. “And have Pugsley walking in when I’m chained to the bed? Pass. We’re taking over the house across the lagoon.”

Jane nods, then freezes. “You actually let him chain you?”

Darcy shrugs, eyeing the shifting muscles of Bucky’s back appreciatively as he helps Lurch adjust a few of their bags. “Equal opportunity torture,” she settles on answering.

Jane rolls her eyes. “You’re telling me all about  _ that _ later.”

“Next time you’re home. Not while we’re in mixed company.” Darcy agrees, scanning the gathered crowd of their mundane friends.

* * *

Bucky lets out a low whistle at the sight of the Addams family manor. “Damn, doll.”

Darcy leans toward the window with a fond glance toward her childhood home. “Dreadfully dreary, isn’t it?”

Bucky nods. “It’s something.”

The car rolls to a halt and it takes all Darcy’s self-control not to bolt out and up the steps. She impatiently waits for Lurch to open the door and hand her out. She manages to wait for Bucky to unfold himself from the car, Thing on his shoulder, and she tosses a demand for Lurch to take their bags to the house across the lagoon before she tugs Bucky up the steps and through the door. 

She’s barely a step through the door when an axe flies past her head. She barely ducks it, and flings a dagger in the direction it came without looking. She hears a satisfactory meaty thunk and turns to see Pugsley sprawled on the floor with her blade in his shoulder and a wide grin on his face. He pulls it from his shoulder and tosses it back. Darcy catches it, uncaring of the blade slicing her palm, and slides it back in it’s sheathe with a mere second to spare before her brother is sweeping her off her feet and spinning her in circles.

He sets her right several seconds later. “Good to have you home.”

Darcy rolls her eyes and arches a brow. “Is my favorite nephew here?”

Pugsley flinches guiltily.

Darcy points a threatening finger at him. “We will be discussing  _ that _ very soon.”

Behind her, Bucky takes in a sharp breath.

Darcy looks up, already knowing what she’ll see. Sure enough, her mother has managed to silently descend the squeaky old staircase and is watching them fondly.

Darcy immediately goes to her. “Mother.”

Morticia caresses her cheek. “Welcome home, darling.”

“My girl!” Gomez’s voice echoes through the foyer half a second before the man himself slides down the bannister and sweeps Darcy into his arms.

Darcy clings to him. “Father.”

Gomez is beaming when he sets her back down.

Morticia clears her throat. “We are being awfully rude. Introduce your friend, Wednesday.”

Darcy goes back to Bucky’s side, twining her arm through his. “Mother, Father, Pugsley, this is James Buchannan Barnes. Bucky, my parents, Morticia and Gomez, and my brother, Pugsley. I’m sure Grandmama, Uncle Fester, Aunt Dementia, and my brother Pubert are around somewhere.”

“Grandmama is working on dinner,” Pugsely offers.

“Fester and Dementia were making sure your house was ready,” Gomez says. “Pubert insisted on helping.”

Darcy lifts a brow. “You let Pubert in my house?”

Morticia waves her off. “Of course. Absolutely no good can come of it. What better homecoming gift? James… it’s a pleasure to meet you. Though I must admit that James doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. I do like Buchannan, if you wouldn’t mind?”

Bucky nods. “Whatever you like, ma’am.”

Morticia’s lips quirk in Darcy’s direction. “Your young man is charming.” She takes another look at Darcy. “What are you wearing, child? You don’t intend to wear that to dinner?”

Darcy looks down at the dark gray maxi skirt and deep red button up blouse she’d put on that morning and flinches. “Of course not. Father, Pugsley, if you’d show Bucky to the house so he can find a suit for dinner? Mother, if you wouldn’t mind lending me a hand?”

Thing hops from Bucky’s shoulder to hers excitedly.

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, you can come along as well, I suppose.”


	11. Lodestar

Darcy Lewis ascends the stairs. Wednesday Addams descends an hour later, and Bucky fears he may have to pick his jaw up off the floor.

Darcy Lewis, along with her soft knits, messy buns, and glasses is _gone_. In her place stands Wednesday Addams - an absolute vision. A gently flared lace skirt that looks like black spiderwebs over dark storm clouds fades up into a tightly cinched black and red corset and even more spider-webbed lace - a high collar and tight sleeves down to the wrist, hints of skin flashing in the low light - emerging from the corset. Darcy’s neutral toned makeup has been replaced by midnight black liner as sharp as a good blade and eye shadow that somehow perfectly matches the underlay of Wednesday’s skirt. Her lips and fingernails are both the color of fresh blood and her curls have been smoothed and tamed into gentle waves flowing down her back.

Bucky loves - loved - Darcy Lewis. Would have done anything for her. But Wednesday Addams… he would die and kill for her with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. Logically, he knows that they are one and the same, but he can’t help but look at Wednesday and see everything Darcy was missing - all the darkness she smothered well enough that he tried to hide his own in an effort not to scare her off. He thinks now that he should have known better.

“Lovely, isn’t she?”

Bucky can’t even take his eyes off her long enough to startle at Morticia’s sudden presence by his side. “путеводная звезда,” is all he manages to answer, because it is the only coherent thought in his mind. For the rest of his existence, Wednesday Addams will quirk a finger, and that is the direction he will go - ever his guiding shadow in a world too full of light.

Morticia smiles. “Oh, Russian. That is lovely, Wednesday, darling. Well done.”

* * *

Morticia can’t help but feel overly fond at the sight in her living room. Gomez and Fester are in one corner bickering over whatever it is that’s caught their fancy. Dementia is on the floor near the fire, playing some convoluted game with Pubert and Thing. Grandmama is knitting on the other side of the fire. Pugsely and Buchannan are arguing heatedly over an assortment of blades strewn across the floor in front of them. And even in the midst of their debate, Wednesday’s young man’s eyes never stray from her for long. His whole being is unconsciously turned toward her daughter, much as her own husband’s is toward her.

“Mother, are you unhappy?” Wednesday’s voice comes from her side.

Morticia tilts her head toward her daughter. “All my family in one place.”

Wednesday mutters something incoherent under her breath.

“What was that, darling?”

“Nothing, Mother.”

“Hmm, I don’t believe that for a moment.”

Wednesday shrugs noncommittally.

“What was it you called your young man at dinner?” Morticia asks several long moments later.

Wednesday ducks her head and fidgets with her hands in her lap.

“Do speak up, Wednesday.”

Wednesday heaves a sigh and meets her mother’s eyes. “ _Mon cœur_."

Morticia raises an eyebrow. “Your heart? You - _oh_. He’s the one you brought back, isn’t he? You are well and truly blood bound. How archaic! What wonderful news! Will there be a wedding soon?”

“Mother!” Wednesday protests sharply.

Morticia shrugs, unapologetic. “Just something to consider. There _is_ a Friday the Thirteenth next month.”


	12. Past Meets Present

True to her word, she returns to New York a week later to help Tony interview her replacement. She doesn’t bother shifting back to Darcy.

“Stark,” she greets as she steps into the conference room.

“Lewis!” Tony waves without looking up from his tablet. “Wasn’t sure you were going to make it.” He glances past her to the door. “Lose your shadow?”

“I said I would,” she answers coolly. “And no. I left him at home to settle in, once again, as I said I would.”

He glances ups as she glides around the table and does a double take, freezing at the sight of her. “Uh… Lewis?”

“Hmm?”

“Not that it isn’t all kinds of appealing, but… well, what’s with the goth goddess look?”

Her lips quirk. “Goth goddess. I like that. I’ll have to remember that one. You got the list of applicants I sent?”

“Yes. Don’t avoid the question.”

She lifts one shoulder in a delicate shrug. “Going back to my roots, I suppose.”

A shit eating grin blooms across his face. “Was kid Darcy a goth?”

She shakes her head. “No. But then again, there was no kid Darcy Lewis.”

Tony sets his tablet aside and turns his full attention to her. “Explain.”

She slides into the chair next to him and offers one perfectly manicured hand. “Wednesday Addams. Pleasure to meet you.”

Tony blinks, throws his head back and laughs, then collects himself enough to shake her hand firmly. “Damn, you must be good. How the hell did that get past my background checks?”

Wednesday’s eyes glint. “You of all people know what money in the right pockets can buy, Stark.”

Tony’s eyes narrow back. “You’re right, I do. So I also know exactly what kind of money is required to make that sort of thing happen.”

“I’m sure you do.”

His tablet dings and he shakes his head. “That’s our queue to start, but we _are_ coming back to this.”

“If you insist.”

“Explain this color coding.”

“Purple are applicants so bad you should consider sabotaging their attempt to get a job any more committed than flipping burgers. Red are simply not worth considering. Yellow would make good minions, but not managers, green are ideal minions. Orange have management potential. Blue are good options for the personal assistant positions.”

“And the white?”

Wednesday grins. “Those two I’d like to interview personally. We have history.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “Either of them actually worth our time or are you just keen on torturing them somehow?”

“You catch on quickly. And yes, one of them is very much worth your time.”

“You’re not going to tell me which?”

“First of all, that would take all the fun out of it. And second, if you can’t tell which from the moment they walk in the door, then your judgement skills are subpar, and I expect better from you.”

“Can we call them in first?”

“Patience is a virtue.”

Tony pouts.

Wednesday rolls her eyes. “I’ve never been particularly virtuous.”

An unholy glee lights Tony’s face and he hits a few keys on his tablet. About a minute later, a slim blonde in a white dress and pink blazer clacks in on a pair of stilettos that match her jacket. She holds a hand across the table, offering a glossy folder that presumably contains her resume. “Hi, I’m-”

Tony cuts her off. “I don’t like being handed things.”

The blonde visibly falters before recovering her smile and turning toward Wednesday. “Okay, um, sorry. This is my - _you_!” She drops the folder and clenched the back of the chair in front of her.

Wednesday levels a cold gaze at her. “Amanda. Is is still Buckman or did you manage to delude some poor sap into marrying you?”

“Is this some kind of trick?”

Wednesday rolls her eyes and sighs. “Always the victim.”

Amanda nearly growls. "My daddy will sue you for this!"

Wednesday raises a single brow, an excellent impression of her mother at her most imperious. "For what, exactly?"

"Harassment, violating the restraining order, hiring bias!"

Tony snorts. "How do you define harassment, Blondie? 'cause you applied and came to us. She's been an Avengers affiliate for years."

"The restraining order expired when we turned eighteen," Wednesday offers.

"And bias?" Tony rolls his eyes, hard. "Upper middle class white blonde with an MBA from an Ivy League suing a company whose CEO is a lower middle class redhead with an MBA from an Ivy League. Good luck kid."

Amanda's face turns an interesting shade of red.

Darcy smiles, a good imitation of camp so long ago. "Do let the door hit you on the way out."

Amanda flinches and retreats so fast she almost loses a heel. Tony absently swipes the tablet in front of him.

Tony turns to her, wide eyed. "She hates you."

Darcy shrugs and leans back in her chair. "Trust me it's mutual… I set her on fire once when we were kids. Can't say I wouldn't do it again given the chance."

"You were a demented child."

"I'm a demented adult."

A gasp draws their attention to the door and Wednesday smiles a bit more genuinely at the wide chocolate eyes behind glasses too big for the face they sit on.

The young man stares at her for a moment before cracking a grin. “I _knew_ that looked like Amanda.”

Tony grimaces. “Are you gonna make this one cry too?”

Wednesday let's her expression soften, but still doesn't quite smile again. "Tony, meet Joel Glicker. He's an old friend."

Tony looks the kid up and down and sighs. "You're gonna tell me to hire this one, aren't you? What if he's not even qualified?"

Darcy smirks, ever so slightly. "It doesn't matter if he's qualified. He's trainable."

Joel blushes to the tips of his ears.


	13. Future

Bucky keeps her chained to their bed for two days after she gets back. When he finally releases her restraints and wraps himself around her, she isn’t surprised when he mutters into her skin, “No more trips without me.”

She smiles against his sweat-damp hair where his head is tucked against her collarbone. “I promise, never again… how do you feel about Europe?”

“What’s in Europe?”

“My nephew. I’m bringing him home.”


End file.
